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This blog is a place where people can leave messages in memory of animals that were special to them in some way. In exchange they will be asked to make a donation to a charity called FRAME, that raises money to find ways to carry out science experiments without using animals.

Visit www.justgiving.com/Mitch-Monkey and leave a donation (minimum £5 please) and don't forget to mention who it's in memory of. Then come back here and make a comment on the latest post. When the donation is cleared by Just Giving I'll make your In Memoriam post visible.

Thursday, 26 July 2012

There's been a lot of fuss about some scientists at Cardiff sewing kittens' eyes shut to investigate what happens in people's brains when they have 'lazy eye'.

Without even considering the fact that sewing an animal's eyes shut is horrible, why do they think that finding out what's going on in in the brain when someone can't see is anything to do with having a lazy eye?

Then we have the question of whether or not what happens in a kitten's brain is anything remotely similar to what goes on in a human brain. Probably not.

And THEN there's the problem of how you treat whatever it is they discover. Suppose the ideal 'cure' is aspirin. Well they won't ever know that because ASPIRIN KILLS CATS! Using cats as test subjects is already a blind alley. (Sorry about that. It's not supposed to be a joke.)

Let me say again. Stop testing things on animals because:

the results you get are NOT relevant to humans

the methods are NOT the best way, let alone the only way

there are plenty of cell-based and tissue-based alternatives

'just because you'd like to know' isn't a good enough reason to hurt animals

Help FRAME to overcome these dreadful tests by making a donation today. Click on my Just Giving button on the right.

Of course it's not only the scientists who are being silly about this. Some of the people who are against animal testing don't help the cause by being rude, suggesting that the scientists should have nasty things done to them, saying that we should test on criminals and paedophiles. That is just as wrong as the animal testers. Sorry - but it is!

Learn the science, people. Talk to the researchers in terms they understand and respect. Then MAYBE we're in with a chance!

Monday, 16 July 2012

Why do we keep being told by scientists that animal experiments are so important? They always say that

we'll never have a cure for cancer or diseases like that if we don't use animals. But if they are so sure that's the way to find them, why don't we already have all those magic cures?

They always ignore the fact that nine out of ten potential treatments that have passed animal tests are TOTAL failures when they are tried out in humans. Some of them are downright dangerous.That's because animals and humans aren't alike.

No animal is ever going to provide the perfect model for human diseases. and when you point that out to the researchers they say "oh yes well, that's true, but it's the best we've got". But NO IT ISN'T.

The best we've got is human stuff. Human tissues and human cells, and human blood samples and even human volunteers. Donated stuff from people who understand what's happening to them and can make an informed decision to help.

But the majority of scientists just keep doing the same old things to animals without ever finding those promised cures. They never even think of using a different way because theyare too stuck in their little ruts to think of better methods.

Help put those scientists on the right track. Please make a donation to FRAME today by clicking here. and tell them Mitch sent you.